Endless Winter (Bucky Barnes)

Prologue

Prologue: Just a kid
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No one said anything about the six year old girl running down the sidewalk. Most people assume the girl to be playing, her long brown hair cascading behind her. She was late to be home, and she knew her mother would pester her about being late for supper. She starts up the apartment stairs and runs where her mother would await her. All of a sudden, the small brunette smacked into a man she had not seen before in the complex.

He was standing at the apartment door, a warm expression on his face. The young one stood up and brushed herself off, her green eyes darting to the man before her. "Hi, I haven't seen you before." She says, swaying a little when she spoke. He crouched down to her level slowly, places his arms over his knees. "You're mother has asked me to watch over you, Jacklyn." The man says.

"Say, how do you know my name?" She asks, tucking a loose strand of brown hair behind her ear. "Your mother told me."

Jacklyn looked at the apartment door behind the crouched man. She had just noticed the door was ajar and the handle was broken. "What's your name, mister?" Asked the girl. "Albert." He says, but the child was not paying attention anymore. She pushed past him and went to open the door, opening it slightly but being stopped by Albert. "Come, child. We must go now." He says, his smooth voice not loosing its comforting vibe.

Whatever he was trying to hide from her, it was too late. Her eyes land on a tangle of long brown hair and blood. The smell hit Jacklyn like a bus, she stumbled back from the door and into Albert, who slammed the door shut. "We must go now." He says, loosing his calm tone and startling Jacklyn.
Still ignorant of what actually happened, she grabs the hand of the stranger, Albert, and follows him to his car. Little does she know, her mother lays dead in the kitchen, blood spilling from her head, and her father strewn across the couch, a bloody picture of Jacklyn still clutched tightly in his fist, and a cut across his neck.

As she walked hand in hand with Albert, he lead her into a car where he told her would take her to her new family. "But what about my family now?" She asks, a nagging feeling she couldn't shake telling her to run back towards the apartment. "They no longer want you, they asked me to take you." Albert says. "My mother told me not to get in the car with strangers." Jacklyn says in a weak attempt to keep herself from crying, but she starts anyway.

"There, there, child. I am not a stranger. You don't have to cry." Albert says. He eventually gets her into the car, and he starts driving away, letting her hum the whole way.

As the drive continued and the child grew to trust Albert, she didn't know the pain she was assuring herself for years to come by getting in that car. She played with the locket around her neck, the one who mother gave her for her 5th birthday, and she noticed a red tattoo on his wrist as he was driving.

If was the HYDRA symbol.